


life was torn like a windblown sand

by livtontea



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirate, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Jill pov, Light Angst, No Incest, Tumblr Prompt, off-screen gore, tua s2 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:48:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26032945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livtontea/pseuds/livtontea
Summary: “Thank you,” she says to the stranger on the beach, her eyes still on her Captain’s face. “Thank you, I—I don’t know how I can repay you.”“You can’t.”
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Jill
Comments: 14
Kudos: 33





	life was torn like a windblown sand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MalecAcid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalecAcid/gifts).



> this fic is for em (@malecacidd on tumblr) who requested an angsty ben drabble and who ended up betaing what turned out far longer and angstier than a drabble. here u go. enjoy your pain ✌😭
> 
> i don't really have a plot or solid au in mind so you just gotta kind of go with the flow on this one, lol. this fic has spoilers for tua s2 and mentions of canon-typical gore and violence. proceed with caution
> 
> title from [sunny](https://youtu.be/yD8DcgpLp_w)

Jill coughs saltwater out of her chest. Her hair falls over her face, crusted with ocean water and dripping in patches. She wheezes, her fingers digging into the sand. Her lungs ache.

She looks up to see a man sitting a short way from her, knees pulled to his chest and hands clasped loosely over them.

“Holy shit,” she coughs. “You—you saved us.”

He nods. Jill pushes herself up on her elbows and wildly looks around, scanning the beach for familiar bodies. For still bodies.

“Keechie…”

Her friend lays still. She scrambles up to press her fingers against his throat—and lets out a sigh of relief. He’s breathing.

Her eye catches on a gold starfish.

“No,” she chokes, nearly tripping over herself in her haste to reach it. “No, it can’t—”

The necklace glimmers in the moonlight. She traces its shape with shaking fingers, so familiar in her hands for a matching one hangs around her neck, unwilling to believe—to accept—

The man clears his throat. Jill whips her head around to look for him, blinking tell-tale dampness from her eyes. “What?”

His finger—pale, ghastly pale in this kind of light—flicks to the side. Jill follows the invisible line he points with her eyes, and—

“Captain!”

Once again she tumbles through the sand, knees sandy-salty and hair even dirtier than before. Her spectacles have seen better days. And nights, as well; the moon is full in the dark hole-poked canvas of the sky, albeit not at the zenith. It’s far past midnight and far too early for the sun’s shine.

She drops to her knees by her Captain’s still form. Her hands shake as she checks him for a pulse—

“Oh, thank god.” She nearly sobs with relief. The Captain’s coat is tattered and torn, soaked to the thread with ocean’s water—but his heart beats strong, if not with a slight stutter. He’s bare-chested and they’re going to have to find a port that sells salves, ointments, bandages… Jill doesn’t think about that now. Her Captain lives.

“Thank you,” she says to the stranger on the beach, her eyes still on her Captain’s face. “Thank you, I—I don’t know how I can repay you.”

Silence. Then—

“You can’t,” says the stranger, voice rough with disuse.

Jill turns to meet his eye. They are dark, but not like hers are dark—deep brown with amber glow in direct sunlight—dark as if he is a cadaver on land, missing a vital spark in his gaze. They suck her in, endless black holes surrounded by milky scleras.

“Surely there is something—anything, I— _we_ can do to give you our gratitude.”

“No.”

“How do you mean? You saved our _lives_ ,” Jill says fiercely. “You saved _my_ life.”

“That I did. My brother wouldn’t have let me live it down if I hadn’t.” He laughs. It’s not a happy laugh. It grates like a sword crashing into iron chains.

“Your brother?”

“If we’re going to talk, must you do it from all the way over there? He’ll be fine.”

“How do you know?”

“He’ll be fine,” repeats the man, and pats the sand next to him.

Jill thinks that she manages to conserve some dignity lowering herself down beside him. She shuffles around, loosening the wet sand around her knees. She half-turns to the stranger, still able to see the Captain if she slants her eyes.

“How did you do it?”

“Do what?”

Jill finds herself reaching up to fiddle with her spectacles. “The… saving.”

“The saving? I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“You saved us,” Jill says, feeling like she’s repeating herself. “How?”

“Isn’t it ungrateful to question my methods? You’re alive, aren’t you? Isn’t that enough?”

“I saw you.” She suddenly feels the need to whisper. The man’s black-hole eyes widen slightly. “I… I saw, you summoned something, or—”

The man laughs. “I wish that was it.”

“Then what was it? How did you do it? Was it a sea monster, a—a Kraken?”

He mutters something that sounds like _my brother_ and _take offense to that_. “No,” he says. “It wasn’t a Kraken.”

“A different kind of monster, then?”

He cants his head, brings his chin to his knees. “You could say that.”

Jill leans forward. She doesn’t understand why, but—she has to know. This man saved her life. He saved all of their lives. She _needs to know._

“It was me.”

She can’t hold back a gasp.

“It was _you?_ But how? That’s—”

“Impossible? Freakish? _Monstrous?_ Yeah. Yeah, it is.” He shuts his eyes.

“…Does it hurt?”

The man throws his head back, lolling it to his side and cracking an eye open to stare at Jill.

“You saw,” he says.

“Yeah.”

“Well then what the fuck do you think?” he bites, suddenly sharp and bitter. “You saw it? Everything? You saw my stomach split open and you saw _them_ and you saw the lightning and thunder and the _storm?_ You saw me tear myself to pieces? You saw—” he scoffs “—my _scars?_ Do you think _it fucking hurts?”_

Distantly, she knows, Jill is crying. She can feel the prickle in her nose and her cheeks are wet and sticky in a new and unpleasant way. She nods shakily.

Just as suddenly as he turned his words to knives, the stranger deflates.

“Yeah. It hurts.”

Jill turns toward the sky. It feels invasive to look at him, this beach stranger-savior, like this. His clothes are so black they blend with the night, and he must be almost invisible next to her green sailor’s clothing.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“Don’t be. There’s nothing you can do about it. But… thanks.”

They sit in silence, watching the sky. Dark clouds pass over the moon, framed silver—Jill alternates sneaking sideways glances at the stranger and at the Captain. Her own starfish pendant is heavy around her neck.

They sit until the edges of the sky start fading to a washed-out grey. When the first rays of sunlight are about to pierce the sky, the stranger stands up. Jill follows, brushing sand off her shins. He doesn’t do the same.

“I have to go,” he says, looking at the horizon. She would say he’s squinting, but he isn’t; if anything, he looks… melancholy. And resigned.

“Why?” asks Jill. “You saved us, I’m sure the others would want to thank you as well—”

“No. I have to go.”

“Where?” whispers Jill. She never saw where he came from. He wasn’t there one moment, but the next, thunder was wracking the sky and he was… splitting… “Where will you go?”

“Where I belong. You could call it… home.”

“Why don’t you stay with us? You could join our crew. The Captain, he wouldn’t mind—”

“I have to go,” he repeats, throwing her a firm but apologetic glance. “Thank you for… being here.”

“I don’t even know your name,” Jill says, suddenly choked up. “Can you at least tell me that? So I can find you again?”

He turns to the horizon and lets out a weary sigh. “You won’t. But… there’s no harm, I suppose. Ben.”

“Ben? That’s a nice name,” she says softly. “Mine is Jill.”

“I know. Tell my brother I said hello.”

“You brother—” Jill begins to ask, but Ben smiles at her and the sun comes out from behind the sea, and the rays pierce his pale, pale, flesh, filtering through him as if he were a mirage.

He takes a step into the sea. Just toeing the water, just barely, just so the gentle waves lap at his boots. He dissipates with every step and then there is nothing there but mist.

The sun shines. Keechie groans behind her and Jill can hear the Captain push himself up from the sand.

_

The Captain had a brother named Ben once, she finds. When she asks him about what happened he gets a faraway, sad look in his eye and turns his gaze to the sea.

_Shipwrecked._

“It’s… been a long time.” The Captain laughs. It’s not a happy laugh. It flounders like something that died decades ago. “I’d rather not talk about it.”

Jill carefully places a hand on his forearm, just for a moment. “He says hello,” she says, and moves to finish tying the knots on the sails.

_

It’s only later, much later, that she realizes Ben didn’t leave any imprints where he sat in the sand.

_

(Somewhere far beneath the heavy weight of the sea, one Ben Hargreeves returns to what is left of his body.)

**Author's Note:**

> so uh. yeah :') yeah. thank you for reading, my tumblr is @zontiky, and any feedback is greatly appreciated! inside my head, there's a little gremlin that sustains itself on comments


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